


Nothing Satisfies Me But Your Soul

by CelticAurora



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angel Allura (Voltron), Angel Shiro (Voltron), Angel/Demon Relationship, Angel/Demon Sex, Demon Deals, Demon Hunters, Demon Keith (Voltron), Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Smoking, Supernatural AU - Freeform, blame lightning-strikes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-07-12 02:58:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15986165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticAurora/pseuds/CelticAurora
Summary: Without a leader, Heaven is in chaos. The archangel Shirogane seeks to save Heaven from turmoil by taking over it himself, but in order to do that, he needs help. And there is only one person who can provide it.The demon Akirath is skilled at bargains and deals. And when his old friend Shiro summons him to make a deal, he sees an offer too good to pass up. But nothing comes without a price, and the one he wants from Shiro is steep.One angel. One demon. One hell of a deal.





	1. The Pawn That's Made to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Damn you, [lightning-strikes](http://lightningstrikes-art.tumblr.com/). This is all your fault.
> 
> Inspired by [this comic](http://http://lightningstrikes-art.tumblr.com/post/177697866879/i-can-be-your-angleor-yuor-devil-read-left-to)
> 
> Title from [Jen Titus's "O Death"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6rb_ZWy1pA>Jen%20Titus's) (because it's not a Supernatural AU without "O Death")

“Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep…”

\- John Milton,  _ Paradise Lost _

* * *

Shiro knew the way to the crossroads very well.

Of course, his chosen target - which wasn’t quite the right word, but rather the best he could come up with - wasn’t picky, and any crossroads would have sufficed. But Shiro wanted to be as far away from prying eyes - both human and not - as possible for this transaction. And so, with one particular location in mind, he left the city of Los Angeles ( _ city of the angels _ , how fitting) and headed east, deep into the Sonoran desert with one particular location in mind.

Some speculated that there were places on earth that retained magic, places located along ley lines, and in the Sonoran, somewhere miles east of Los Angeles and north of the Mexican border, a ley line crossed an old, long-forgotten desert trail. A single, skeletal tree stood as a marker and silent watcher for this spot. 

Shiro arrived in a shimmer of light and a rustling of feathers, and found himself glad for his trench coat; despite the heat of the day, the desert was cool at night, and clouds had rolled over the face of the moon, as if to hide what he was about to do.

What sin he was about to commit.

The weight of his task on his shoulders, he reached into the pockets of his coat, pulling out a few items.

A box. A photo. A bone. A handful of graveyard dirt.

To be caught with those four items in his pocket would have been more than enough him to be stripped of his wings and cast out - the same fate as what befell the old friend he was looking to summon.

And here he was, an archangel of the Lord, about to do one thing he swore he would never do.

He knelt in the sand. A scorpion scuttled away from the base of the tree, as if it didn’t want to stick around to witness what he was about to do. 

_ Is this really worth it? _

Failure would cost him everything.

But if he succeeded…

He dug his hands into the loose, sandy soil, still warm from the heat of the day. The hole he dug was a small, shallow one, but that was all he needed - just big enough for the box. The bone and photo went into the box, and the graveyard dirt was sprinkled over the entire lot. He pressed the disturbed sand back into its place, burying everything, smoothing the sand as if he could hide what he had just done.

But those items alone would not be enough. He knew that, in order to get the particularly nasty little bastard that he was seeking, he was going to have to offer something the demon couldn’t refuse.

He drew his angel blade from the pocket of his trench coat, pressing the tip of it to the pad of his thumb. Bright red blood, tinged with silver from his presence within his human host, welled on his finger; slowly, he turned his hand over, squeezing his thumb, watching as a fat bead of blood grew, then, too heavy to stay, dropped into the sand, followed by three more in rapid succession.

For a moment, there was no sound but Shiro’s ragged breathing.

Black smoke erupted from the ground, swelling up into an amorphous mass taller than Shiro. A sudden wind kicked up, ruffling his silver-white hair; he swore he could hear a deep, throaty chuckling in the breeze. The mass of smoke began to coalesce into a shape, swirled and sculpted by the sudden gust of wind that had kicked up. In the space of a blink, between one heartbeat and the next, the smoke dissipated, leaving a young man standing precisely where Shiro had buried the box.

He was all angles and sharp edges, a mop of soot-black hair hanging in his glowing red eyes. Black pants clung to mile-long legs in a sinfully tight fashion, and the studs on his leather jacket looked sharp enough to draw blood. A cigarette, unlit, dangling from his lips, which curled into a smirk at the sight of Shiro.

“Well, well.” Flames erupted on the tip of his thumb; he used them to light his cigarette. “If it isn’t my favorite little holy bean counter. How are you, Shiro?”

“I don’t have time for pleasantries, Akirath. I’ve come to - ”

“Keith.”

Shiro frowned. “Pardon?”

“I’m going by Keith these days. That’s the name of this lovely little skin suit - or, at least, it was, before I sucked his soul out.” He tugged on the front of his studded leather jacket, clearly pleased with himself. “Much less of a mouthful than  _ Akirath _ , don’t you think?”

“I don’t care,” Shiro ground out.

Keith took a deep drag from his cigarette, frowning. A split-second later, he had closed the distance between the two of them, and he blew a mouthful of nicotine-and-clove scented smoke into Shiro’s face.

“So rude,” he drawled. “And I thought  _ I  _ was supposed to be the bad-mannered one.”

“I haven’t come to play games, Keith,” Shiro said. “I’ve come to bargain.”

Keith didn’t respond, instead considering him for a long moment, cheeks hollowing as he took another drag. His thin, dark brows were just visible through his too-long hair, drawn so close together they were almost touching. He blew out another noxious cloud of smoke.

And then, he started to laugh.

The cigarette fell from his fingers as he bent over at the waist, hands braced on his knees, cackling loud enough to wake the dead, it seemed. Shiro wasn’t quite sure how flammable sand was, but the last thing he needed was to set the desert on fire, so he quickly stomped on it, flattening the infernal thing as Keith wiped mirthful tears from his eyes.

“I don’t understand what’s so funny.”

“You are!  _ You _ , make a bargain? With  _ me? _ ” Keith cackled again. “Hell’s sake, Shiro, I didn’t think you had it in you to make a joke like that!”

“This isn’t a joke,” Shiro insisted. “I’m serious.”

“Yeah, and I’m the fucking Queen of England.”

Shiro frowned. “No...no, you’re not. And what does she have to do with anything?”

Keith shook his head, manifesting another cigarette in a puff of black smoke. “You really need to get out more, Feathers. Spend some more time on Earth.”

“Keith, I’ve already told you, I don’t have time for games and run-arounds,” Shiro said, voice tight with frustration. “I summoned you to make a bargain.”

Keith lit the cigarette. Took an infuriatingly slow drag, then let it out, the smoke curling around his head in some kind of perversion of a halo. Shiro contemplated whether it would be worth it to snatch the damned thing from Keith’s mouth, just so he could get an answer.

Keith blinked out of existence.

Shiro whirled around, turning a tight circle on the spot. He could feel his temper rising; he was beginning to wonder if he should have just summoned a less-experienced crossroads demon, one who wasn’t as much of an unholy terror as Keith, and taken his chances.

“Up here, Feathers.”

Shiro looked up. Keith was seated in the skeletal tree, legs dangling over the branch, looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He leaned forward, elbows braced on his thighs as he studied Shiro.

“You must be very, very desperate to call on me for help,” Keith said, voice dangerous, soft and seductive.

“You have a reputation,” Shiro said. “Twisted, wicked creature that you are, word is that you get the job done well.”

“I don’t believe in half-assed work. Even demons have standards.” Keith smiled, flashing a mouth of sharp, white teeth. “So, what can I do for you?”

“Can you come down here while we speak?”

Keith’s response was an obscene hand gesture. Shiro closed his eyes, trying not to sigh too loudly. Apparently, working with Keith was to be an exercise in patience.

“Very well,” Shiro said. “Our Father - ”

“ _ Your _ Father,” Keith spat, eyes flashing. “He is no father of mine.”

Shiro could have argued that the Lord had created both Akirath and Keith, and though Akirath had fallen with Lucifer, and Keith had sold his soul to a demon, they were both still creatures of the Lord. However, that seemed likely to anger the demon, and Shiro needed this deal done tonight.”

“Fine.  _ My _ Father. He is gone. Heaven is in chaos, lost without a leader.”

“Mmm. Sounds like a personal problem.”

Shiro frowned. “You are not being very helpful.”

“Look, Feathers, I didn’t come all the way from Hell to waste my time with exposition. I’ve got shit to do, and right now, you’re costing me souls. Either spit it out or get fucked.”

“I need dark quintessence.”

His words hung heavy in the air. He almost expected the host of Heaven to descend upon him as soon as the words left his lips. But the sky did not fall, and the world did not end. All that happened was that Keith smiled like the cat that’d caught the canary, all pointy teeth.

“ _ Now _ we’re getting somewhere.”

He plucked another cigarette from thin air, twirling it in long, thin fingers, watching Shiro, waiting.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Can you get the quintessence or not?”

“Oh, I can get the quintessence. That’s not a problem. But…” Keith drew out the last word, slowly placing the cigarette between his lips, “I have to wonder...what could a good little archangel such as yourself possibly want with dark quintessence?”

“I am too evenly matched in strength and power with the other archangels,” Shiro explained. “That is why Heaven has become so embroiled in chaos - there is no clear leader. But...with the dark quintessence, I can muster enough power to overthrow the other archangels.”

“Funny,” Keith said, “last angel I knew who did that got thrown out of Heaven.”

“Keith…”

“But I guess it’s okay when  _ you _ do it, Feathers.”

“This is not about Lucifer’s fall, Keith. Or yours.”

“Oh, but it is.” Keith disappeared from his perch in the tree, reappearing in front of Shiro, bristling with anger. “You may see yourself as some noble angel, ready to play the role of the big damn hero, but you know what I see?” He leaned in close, breath hot and reeking of cigarettes and sulfur. The finger he jabbed into Shiro’s chest was tipped with a menacingly long black claw. “I see a fool and a coward, looking for the easy way to solve his problems.”

Shiro looked down at Keith, impassive. There was some measure of truth to the demon’s words - he did see his plan calling for him to fill the role of the hero, the savior of Heaven. And maybe it was cowardly, the bargain he was ready to strike, the measures he was prepared to take. But none of that changed the fact that Heaven was growing more unstable by the day, and that if Shiro did not do something - if someone didn’t do something - there would not be a Heaven to go to at all. The infighting would tear it apart.

“Will you help me or not?”

“Of course I’ll help you, Feathers. Don’t be stupid.” Keith backed off slightly, lighting his cigarette. “It will cost you, though. I don’t make deals for free.”

That was the part of the bargaining that Shiro had been dreading - the cost. Dark quintessence was abundant in Hell, but it was immensely powerful - and Keith drove a hard bargain.

“What do you want?”

“Oh, now, don’t look at me like that, I’m not asking for much.” Keith’s smile was positively feral. “I think one hundred thousand souls should be enough.”

Shiro’s stomach lurched; if he could have, he would have been sick in the sand between him and Keith. He knew the demon drove a hard deal, but this...this was more than Shiro had expected. More than he could bear.”

“ _ One hundred thousand _ ...no…” He shook his head. “Keith, that is...what you ask is too much.”

“You’re asking for quintessence that is infinitely powerful - and you’re asking for enough of it to take down an army of archangels. You should have known it would not come cheap.”

“Keith…”

“That’s not all.” This time, the cloud of smoke Keith exhaled curled into a dozen little hearts. “I want you.”

Shiro frowned. “Keith, you know that I am a being of light quintessence. I have no soul to give to you.”

“You are really dense, aren’t you?” Keith rolled his eyes. “I want your body.”

Shiro’s eyes went wide, and he almost choked on his tongue. “W-Wha-What?!”

“One night, my little birdbrain. That’s all I want, one measly little night of you in my bed - or me in yours, if you prefer that.”

“As if the souls weren’t enough - !”

Keith blinked away again, leaving those wisps of black smoke in his wake. A split-second later, a solid body, burning hotter than Hell even through its clothing, pressed against his back, arms around his waist and black-clawed fingers toying with the buckle to his belt.

“This is a small price to pay to have such immense power at the tips of your fingers,” Keith murmured, breath hot against Shiro’s neck and ear, sending a shiver down his spine. “You could bring all of Heaven to its knees, and all it would cost is a night with me and a paltry hundred thousand souls.”

“That’s...that’s a hundred thousand lives, Keith. A hundred thousand human beings.”

“People die every day, Shiro. Everyone and everything must die eventually. Why does it matter so much if some do it sooner than others.”

“And...and the night with you..?”

“Just one night, Feathers. You and I.” One of Keith’s hand dropped, palming Shiro’s crotch through the fabric of his pants. He jolted, pushing his way out of the demon’s hold, turning to shoot him an annoyed expression.

“Must you be so base?”

“Come on, Shiro. You found me beautiful once.”

Once...once, Akirath had been one of the most beautiful angels in Heaven, beautiful enough to draw even the notice of Lucifer, the Morning Star. Once, Shiro had loved him, as he had loved nothing before...and as he had loved nothing since.

Once, Akirath’s fall had nearly ended him.

“It’ll be just like old times,” Keith said, voice softened by remembrance. 

“But it is not old times, Keith.”

Something in the demon’s red eyes turned cold and hard. He made a low noise in his throat, then summoned another cigarette, lighting it with a burst of flame.

“That is my price,” he said. “Unlimited dark quintessence in exchange for a hundred thousand souls and a night of pleasure. So tell me, do we have a deal... _ Feathers? _ ”

Shiro held Keith’s gaze for a long moment. He didn’t like Keith’s terms, and, of course, he didn’t trust him, but he knew his back was against the wall. He had neither the power nor the numbers to overthrow the other archangels. The quintessence was his only chance.

“Yes.”

“Oh good.” Keith’s voice had taken a gravelly, deeper pitch that made Shiro’s gut clench. “I’m so glad you’re seeing things my way. Now...to sign the contract.”

Shiro drew his angel blade, ready to draw his own blood in order to sign the contract. Keith, however, had other ideas; he grabbed Shiro by the lapels of his coat, dragging him in and pressing their lips together.

This was not the kiss of the lovers they had once been. This kiss was a hot, angry thing, Keith’s sharp teeth scraping over Shiro’s lips, his tongue - forked, like a snake’s - sliding into Shiro’s mouth, warm and wet and so hot…

There was a rush of wind. Shiro saw feathers falling in his peripheral vision, felt...he couldn’t quite describe what it was that he felt, but he had the feeling that the world had somehow shifted on its axis. The clouds rolled away, and the light of the desert moon cast them both into sharp, shadowy relief on the sand. Shiro could see the shadows of his own wings, but to his surprise, he found that Keith was flanked by shadowy wings as well - but they were ruined things, feathers almost completely molted off, only a few sooty, plucked ones remaining, desperately clinging to a wing that was now covered in the tough, leathery membrane of a demon’s wing.

Shiro’s heart stuttered, chest flooding with an immense feeling of sorrow. Akirath’s wings had been beautiful, thick and vibrantly-colored, filled with blue-and-purple plumage. Now, there was hardly anything left to them.

Shiro broke the kiss at the feel of a sharp pain in his mouth. Keith pulled away slowly, a rope of saliva and blood hanging between their lips still. Shiro touched his fingers to his lips; they came away wet with blood. Keith’s forked tongue darted out to lick the trickle of black blood from his own lips. 

“Mmm...a pleasure doing business with you, Shiro. As always.” Keith’s tongue swiped over his sharp teeth; he brought his forgotten cigarette to his mouth, taking a drag. “I look forward to our evening together.”

Before Shiro could say anything in response, Keith disappeared in a wisp of black smoke. The only sign he’d ever been there at all was the half-smoked cigarette, still lit, that had fallen into the sand. Shiro sighed, closing his eyes and running a hand through his hair.

_ What have I done? _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from ["Jars"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEUQ8iSOsFA) by Chevelle.
> 
> Watch me obsess over Voltron and Sheith [on Tumblr](http://mllecomtessedelafere.tumblr.com) or [on Twitter](http://twitter.com/celticaurora)


	2. I Sent My Scourge, I Sent My Sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith doesn't trust Shiro not to back out of his end of the deal - so he goes in search of a little help.

Deep in the desert, there was a rundown shack.

Once, the shack had been connected to a farmhouse, serving as part shed, part garage to the occupants of the nearby home. Once, the house had burnt down, along with the hopes and dreams of a dark-haired little boy. Once, that same boy - now a man - had come back to that shack in the desert, life in shambles, intending to live out the rest of what was sure to be a short, miserable life, likely to end by his own hand. The love of his life was a dead man, condemned to the cold depths of outer space for something he didn’t do, and all his dreams and ambitions had gone up in smoke, just like the old farmhouse he’d once called home.

But the human Keith was no longer there. He was no longer anywhere. He may as well have never existed at all.

Akirath had, in absence of Keith, taken over the little shack, mostly for the purpose of having a place to crash. Somehow, Keith’s personal effects had never made it down from the walls and shelves; he’d found them charming, in their own small way, even if he ignored them most of the time.

But now, as he threw the door open so hard it almost came off his hinges, he was on a mission. Slamming the door hard enough to rattle the small shack, he headed straight for a bulletin board that had been mounted on one of the walls. The entire time he’d been bargaining with that holier-than-thou pain-in-the-ass Shirogane, he’d been wondering why the meat suit he’d picked up had seemed so familiar.

And now, as he yanked a picture - a real photograph, like an 80s Polaroid - off of the bulletin board, he knew why.

In the picture, Keith - the human Keith - smiled to the camera, looking younger, untroubled, hair shorter and dressed in a hideous orange-and-white uniform. A slightly older man - maybe in his mid-twenties - had an arm looped around Keith’s shoulder, beaming, distinguished in his gray uniform. Though his hair was dark and the bridge of his nose unmarked, there was no doubt that that was the same human whose face Shirogane was wearing.

“Well well,” he murmured, “what a tangled web we weave, Shiro.”

Yellow eyes loomed at Keith from the darkened closet of a bedroom. He smiled, tucking the photo into the pocket of his jacket.

“You’ll never guess who I ran into today, Kosmo.”

He snapped his fingers, and a nearby lamp came to life, just enough to banish the shadows to the corners. As he headed to the couch, however, a large shadow manifested itself there, settling into a canine shape, eyes unblinking as they stared at Keith. After a moment, Kosmo coalesced into a wolf-sized dog, black fur shining. A line of blue flames flared to life down his back.

Keith took a seat on the floor in front of the sofa, running a hand over the hellhound’s head and admiring the flutter of blue flames over his skin.

“You remember my old friend Shiro, right? Feathers?” He paused, then continued. “Turns out, he’s kicking around on this ball of dirt, too. And wearing the fact of this meatbag’s dead lover. That must be why I got this particular skin suit faster than expected.”

Kosmo cocked his head at Keith.

“Look, he only said that he wanted the man he loved back. He failed to mention the specifics - such as he had to be back body and soul.”

Kosmo’s gave a disapproving snort.

“Of course I didn’t tell him that the magic required specifics. I’m a demon.”

Another disapproving snort.

“No, I don’t have scruples. How do you think I’ve survived for so long.” Keith raised an eyebrow at Kosmo. “For a hellhound, you are surprisingly soft-hearted.”

Kosmo put his head down on the edge of the couch, pouting at Keith.

“Yeah, yeah, you know you wouldn’t know what to do without me.”

The shack was quiet. Keith idly mussed Kosmo’s fur, mulling over his encounter with Shiro. He’d certainly done a good job picking a human vessel; his form was smart, handsome, and if the drawings from human Keith’s sketchbook and the memories from his head were anything to go off of, the kind of abs that could grate cheese.

And even those were nothing worth writing home about in comparison to that dick…

“A figure like Adonis, and he hides it under a fuckin’ trench coat,” Keith mused. “If I looked like that, I’d parade naked through the streets of Los Angeles.”

Kosmo grunted.

“It was nice seeing him again,” Keith sighed softly. “Sanctimonious pain in the ass that he is.”

Kosmo’s yellow eyes tilted up to him. Keith grinned, sliding his thumbs into the corners of Kosmo’s mouth, pulling the hellhound’s jowls up into some creepy approximation of a smile.

“Gosh, seeing ol’ Feathers sure does make me happy,” Keith drawled, sounds more like a love-struck teenager than a crossroads demon. “Makes my little black heart go all a-flutter.”

He sighed, pressing his lips together. It was, unfortunately, the truth - Shiro did make his heart miss a beat. Always had, and even after all the time between them, all the hate and hurt and all of Keith’s vitriolic words, still did.

But Shiro was an archangel of the Lord. He’d made his choice before, and he’d chosen duty over Keith. Over love.

Keith slid his thumbs around, pulling Kosmo’s jowls into an overexaggerated frown. “But what could such a goody-two-shoes little archangel possibly see in a nasty demon like me?”

He slid his thumbs out of Kosmo’s mouth, idly wiping the hellhound’s acidic drool on the cushion of the battered sofa, heedless of the faint smoke it left behind, or the dissolving stitches of the upholstery. Kosmo cocked his head at his owner, giving a low whine. There was a very knowing look in his burning yellow eyes. Keith frowned, brow wrinkling.

“What?”

Kosmo placed a paw on Keith’s knee, the look in his eye one of pity. Keith scowled.

“Oh don’t look at me like that. I don’t need pity.”

Kosmo huffed, indignant, and got up, trotting across the room and laying down on a threadbare rug in the corner with a baleful look in Keith’s direction. Keith ignored him, taking a cigarette out of his jacket pocket, but not yet lighting it.

“One hundred thousand souls,” he murmured, turning the cigarette over in his hands. “A worthy challenge for a worthy angel. But oh, it is going to be Hell trying to get him to stop being a little bitch and go reap those souls.”

Kosmo made a soft noise.

“It’s really not that many, in the grand scheme of things,” Keith told him. “A task that could be completed in a few days if he just didn’t fight me on this. I’m not even giving him a list of specific people, just a general marching order. The rest is up to him. He doesn’t even have to play God, just collector. But oh, how those angels love their precious humankind.”

Kosmo whined.

“Do you know how many people die per day, Kosmo? And how many are born in return? If he just stopped being so damn moral for a second, he could see that I’m not even forcing his hand _that much._ ”

Kosmo didn’t make a noise this time, just cocked his head at Keith, who sighed.

“Oh, who am I kidding? Shiro’s too softhearted to do what needs to be done. Even if there’s dark quintessence on the line, when it comes to humans and their precious souls, he’ll stall for ages to avoid harming even one hair on their heads.” Keith rolled the cigarette between his thumbs and two front fingers, thinking. “Unless…”

Kosmo sat up on the rug. Keith jumped to his feet, placing the cigarette between his lips and lighting it with a snap of his fingers. He took a drag, then grinned to Kosmo.

“I think it’s time we pay Ezor a visit.”

* * *

The people may have called it a hospital, but there was very little healing going on in it.

It wasn’t even a proper building, but a canvas tent with crates stacked along the edges in a vain attempt to keep the outside from coming in. Down the way, he could see a building going up, built by the volunteers with their white shirts and their toothpaste-commercial smiles, but they weren’t skilled laborers, just white Christians with a misplaced sense of charity.

And everywhere, Keith could smell sickness and death. Patients were laying on cots that had been packed in, with maybe just enough space to squeeze between them. They were groaning, coughing and sneezing; the air smelled like piss, shit, and the sour tang of old sweat. There was only one doctor on hand, and a handful of nurses, and they were clearly overwhelmed. And it wasn’t just the locals who were sick - the missionaries that were presumably trying to better the village had been laid low, too.

Clearly, Ezor had left her mark.

She wasn’t in the tent, but Keith managed to corner an overworked nurse, who, between stutters and tears, managed to point him outside of the tent, to a hill overlooking the pseudo-hospital setup. Atop the hill, a slim figure watched from astride a white horse. He’d thanked the nurse, sent her running, and made his way up the hill.

He finished off his cigarette halfway up the hill and discarded the butt into the grass, hearing a slight hiss as the dampness in the grass put out his cigarette. The rider waited at the top of the hill, patient and unmoving, wearing bleach-stained scrubs, hair pulled back into a tight braid. As he got closer, he could see the traces of sickness - the dry, cracked lips, the fever-glassy eyes, and the blotchy red nose that came from too much wiping and blowing. He chuckled.

“Nice look.”

“It is if I want to blend in,” she said, rolling her shoulders back. The change was instantaneous; Ezor’s true form was all orange skin and burning-blue eyes, braided hair becoming a long, tail-like appendage that crowned her skull. She smoothed the black robes that had replaced the scrubs, peering down at Keith imperiously.

“Shouldn’t you be working, Akirath?”

He gestured to the hospital. “I could ask you the same thing... _Pestilence._ ”

“I did my job in there,” she said. “I’m just waiting for Narti to come do hers.”

A shadow fell across their path. Looking up, Keith found a skeletal horse that was a sickly gray-green in color draw up to the two of them, bearing a rider all in black. A chill spider-walked down Keith’s spine; of all the horsemen, Narti - Death - was the one who unsettled him the most. It wasn’t just her silence, both in the way she moved and her propensity for not speaking. It was how she appeared to be nowhere and yet everywhere all at once, how she had no eyes in her true form, only a flat expanse of grayish skin where her eyes should have been, and yet she could still see everything. She inclined her head towards Ezor, who smirked.

“They’re waiting for you in there.”

Narti nodded, and in the blink of an eye, she was gone, only to reappear in front of the canvas-tent hospital and dismount her horse. Ezor smiled a sinister, satisfied grin, then turned to look down her nose at Keith.

“Isn’t there a crossroad that’s missing you?”

“I need a favor.”

“A favor?” she sneered. “And why would I do any favors for you?”

“Because I’m about to haul in one hundred thousand souls,” Keith drawled. “And I thought that maybe you’d like to tie your name to such a haul.”

“One hundred thousand souls?” Ezor’s blue eyes went wide. “How in the hell are you pulling in a haul like that?”

“There’s a very desperate archangel that’s looking for enough dark quintessence to overthrow the other angels and take leadership of Heaven.”

“Ooooh, someone’s going to be in a lot of trouble if that gets around.” Ezor’s smile faded, and she narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “So why come to me?”

“I’m concerned that Shirogane isn’t going to hold up his end of the deal. He seemed a little sticker-shocked when I told him what I wanted from him.”

Ezor rolled her eyes. “If the goody two-wings can’t handle the cost, it’s no concern of mine.”

“It is of mine,” Keith said. “I’ve got the biggest haul of my little demon life on the line, plus a...little something extra.”

“What else could you possibly be getting from an angel?”

“Nothing that concerns you. But I’m not willing to let this opportunity slide through my fingers because an angel’s afraid of getting his hands dirty.”

“So what do you want from me? If it’s souls you want, maybe you should be talking to Narti.”

“Oh, I’ll get the souls. I just need...a catalyst.”

Ezor raised an eyebrow - or would have, if she had eyebrows. “A catalyst, huh?”

“Mhm. What do you have?”

“Well, what do you want? Virulent plague? Global pandemic?”

“Something nasty,” Keith said. “Easily spread, and they won’t develop antibiotics for it in five days.”

“I think I have just the thing.” Ezor reached into her robes, digging around a bit before drawing out a sealed vial. The inside of the glass was a foggy, bile-yellow color, but there didn’t appear to be any substance in the vial. She passed it to Keith. “This is septicemic plague. A close relative of the bubonic plague, but with a much nastier host of symptoms for your pleasure. It’s transmitted through fleas, so the rate of contamination is high, and if antibiotic treatment isn’t administered quickly and aggressively, you’re looking at a high chance for a pretty unpleasant death.”

“How do I get it out of here?” Keith asked, turning the vial upside-down and giving it a little shake.

“It’s a miasma.” Ezor snatched the vial, righted it, and handed it back to Keith. “You uncork the vial and away it goes. It needs to incubate through animals first, typically, so it might take a while to reach full potency, but give it a few days and you’ll be up to your ears in souls. Just...make sure you know what you’re doing when you turn that loose.”

The sounds of distant wails caught Keith’s ears. He glanced towards the canvas hospital tent and found Narti exiting the building, mounting her horse and disappearing without a word.

“You might want to get used to that sound,” she said. “We’re going to be hearing a lot more of it.”

* * *

The apartment wasn’t much, but it was home.

Not Shiro’s home, of course - his human vessel had had nothing; all of his earthly possessions had been stripped from him after he’d been condemned for his crimes, crimes he was innocent of. But Shiro had recently come into the company of a hunter, Matthew Holt, who rented a ramshackle apartment in a falling-down building on the far outskirts of Los Angeles - far enough out that he wasn’t sure if they even counted as being in Los Angeles anymore. Matthew - Matt, he preferred - shared the apartment with his sister Katherine, a hard-edged woman barely older than eighteen and with the face of a girl much younger, who had thrown one of her boots at his head when he’d addressed her by her given name. He’d learned to call her “Pidge,” a nonsensical nickname that had something to do with a childhood incident between her and Matt, and he mostly did this because he really didn’t want another steel-toed boot thrown at his head. Pidge may have been small, but her boots were heavy, and her aim was deadly.

Sharing an apartment with the Holt siblings meant a lot of time spent alone, though, with Matt and Pidge gone on assignments, or hunting down leads in a vain attempt to find their father. They were gone again, leaving Shiro with a fridge full of leftovers and ready-meals and a plea for him to not burn the house down trying to make dinner. He’d eaten a microwaveable mac and cheese dinner that was all rubbery noodles and half-frozen cheese, and now lay on the narrow, hard twin bed in the room he shared with Matt - Pidge had the second bedroom to herself, by virtue of being the only female in the apartment - with his stomach in knots that had nothing to do with his sub-par dinner.

He kept thinking back to the crossroads. To Keith - no, not Keith, he had to keep reminding himself, _Akirath_ , because Keith didn’t exist anymore, he may as well have never existed at all. As for Akirath...thousands of years in Hell had hardened him, turned him into something he was not - or, rather, something he had not been before. Something Shiro had not thought him capable of becoming.

And yet, he’d sought Akirath out. Made a deal with him. One hundred thousand souls...and one night in his bed.

The idea of spending a night in the demon’s bed did _things_ to Shiro’s body, making him respond in a physical way. Even now, just thinking about it made his heart speed up and his pants feel uncomfortably tight. A physical consummation of their love had been forbidden in Heaven, but clearly, sexual intercourse was not off the table for Shiro’s human vessel, Takashi.

And considering Akirath was inhabiting the body of Takashi’s former fiance…

Shiro groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face, feeling more and more like he’d made a terrible mistake in making a deal with Keith.

Beside him, his phone chirped. Matt and Pidge had bought him a cheap phone when he’d moved in with them, with the purpose of being able to keep in touch with him (and keep track of him, despite his insistence that he didn’t need to be kept track of). It had taken him a while, but with Matt’s patient teachings and the echoes of Takashi’s memories, he’d learned to use the phone, to recognize the sounds it made and what they meant. But this time...he didn’t recognize the sound.

Frowning, he picked up his phone. The screen was lit up, and he appeared to have a text message, but his phone usually made a completely different sound when he received a text message, and he didn’t recognize the number. In fact, he was pretty sure it was made up.

_666-6666: Meet me on the roof._

Shiro unlocked his phone, opening the message - although he wasn’t yet sure if he was going to respond to the message or delete it. Before he could do anything, however, another message came in.

_666-6666: Don’t keep me waiting. <3 _

He got to his feet slowly, feeling as though he was being watched. Was he? Who was this person, and how had they gotten his number? Shiro had maybe a grand total of three people in his contacts, and Matt, Pidge, and Hunk were all fairly tight-lipped people who would see no reason to give away the phone number of an archangel.

The phone rang, and Shiro actually dropped it, he was so startled. It skittered along the bare wooden floor, while he watched it like he expected it to attack. After a moment, it finally went dark and silent, and Shiro let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He crossed the room, picking up the phone, which had come to a rest near the door.

The phone rang again...from 666-6666. This time, Shiro answered the call.

“Hello? Who is this?!”

“ _Well, now, what’s got your feathers in a bunch?_ ”

“Aki...Keith? What? How did...how did you get this number?”

“ _Never you mind that._ ” He could practically hear Keith pouting on the other end of the call. “ _Why are you ignoring me, Shiro?_ ”

“Where are you? What do you want?” Shiro leaned across the bed and twitched the curtains aside, half-expecting to see Keith hovering outside the window, even though they were seven floors up.

“ _I thought my text messages made it fairly clear what I wanted,_ ” Keith drawled. “ _Come up to the roof._ ”

“Why?”

“ _I have a little present for you._ ”

Shiro made a face. “Is it a knife in the back?”

“ _Oh, why do you have to say such mean things to me? I could have something nice to give you. Like a blowjob._ ”

“Keith…”

“ _You’re right, we’ll save that for later. Point is, I have something for you, and you’re being very rude by making me wait. I don’t like waiting, Shiro._ ”

“I want to know what you have for me before I waste my time coming up there.”

Keith snarled - actually snarled - over the phone, and a shiver went down Shiro’s spine. “ **_Get your sanctimonious ass up here now._ ** ”

Shiro swallowed, suddenly nervous. Gone was the mocking, sugar-sweet tone in Keith’s voice; now, he had the gravely undertones of a demon, and the temper to match.

“ _Don’t keep me waiting too long, Feathers._ ” And just like that, Keith was back to his childish, singsong tone. “ _Or I’ll have to come find you._ ”

The line went dead. Shiro slid his phone into his pocket, glancing nervously at the ceiling as he did. He didn’t trust Keith as far as he could throw him, but he did not want to give the demon any reason to come into the building, past floors of innocent people in search of him. So he shrugged on his trench coat, grabbed his keys, and headed out, up the narrow staircase to the ceiling.

The door to the roof was supposed to have an alarm, in order to keep tenants from going up there, but the alarm had been disable ages ago. People snuck up to the roof all the time for cigarettes, and the black-tar surface was littered with butts. Shiro slipped out onto the roof, shivering slightly in the cooling evening air and looking around for Keith.

He found the demon stretched across the roof’s waist-high ledge, precariously balanced at ten stories off the ground, smoking a cigarette with his free hand cradling his head. He turned his head at the sound of Shiro’s approach, smiling around his cigarette.

“Ah, there you are. I didn’t even get to finish my smoke. You must have been in a hurry.”

“The last thing anyone in that building needs is you skulking about,” Shiro ground out, watching Keith like a hawk as he sat up, stretching languidly. Keith frowned, placing a hand to his heart at Shiro’s words.

“You wound me.”

“Spare me the theatrics, please,” Shiro sighed. “What do you have for me?”

Keith reached into the pocket of his jacket, drawing out a small, sealed vial and holding it out to Shiro, but not moving to hand it to him. Shiro clenched his jaw, even more frustrated with Keith - a feat he wasn’t entirely sure was possible.

“Enough games, Keith,” he ground out. “Toss it over here.”

“Oooh, pretty sure you don’t want me to do that,” Keith said. “You see, this vial contains a particularly nasty little plague, courtesy of Pestilence herself. She told me very specifically not to open this unless I was sure I wanted to let out what I had in here. I’d hate to break it on accident.”

“A plague?” Shiro frowned. “What on Earth would I need a plague for?”

“You want your dark quintessence, don’t you? One hundred thousand souls was the price. Lucifer’s sake, are all archangels this fucking stupid?”

Shiro’s blood ran cold. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh?”

“You can’t unleash a plague on humanity!”

“Me? Oh, my dear little feather-brained friend, _I’m_ not going to unleash the plague.” Keith popped out of existence, only to reappear nearly nose-to-nose with Shiro, sporting a ghastly sort of grin. “You are.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t turn loose a plague on humankind…”

“You can’t, or you won’t?”

Shiro shook his head. “Find another way.”

“Another way to what? Don’t you get it, Feathers? You have no cards to play. Nothing to bargain with. You came to me for help, and this is the price of my help. If you’re not willing to get me those souls, then stop wasting my fucking time.”

Keith disappeared again, popping back up on the ledge around the roof. He moved to step off and into thin air; Shiro’s stomach sank. If Keith went, so did Shiro’s chance of getting the quintessence. Of saving Heaven from itself.

“Wait.”

Keith paused, one foot stuck out, as if testing the open air in front of him. He glanced over his shoulder, arching one imperious brow at Shiro.

“Why this?” Shiro asked. “Why a plague?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me.”

Keith rolled his eyes, grumbling something that sounded like fucking bleeding heart, but he turned around and hopped down from the ledge.

“Think of it like this, Feathers,” he began. “People die every day. Death is an unavoidable part of the human condition. They wage wars, starve their poor, refuse to treat their ill, and willingly pump their bodies full of toxic chemicals. Everyone will die, but some people...they find themselves gambling with Death more than others, for reasons that are outside of their control. The homeless veteran who suffers from PTSD, the starving children living on the streets, the frightened wife whose husband likes to take swings at her when he’s drunk...those people dance in Death’s way every day, but by circumstance, not choice.” He held up the vial. “But plagues don’t care who you are. Rich, poor, sick, healthy, old, young... _ob arm, ob reich, im Tode gleich_ \- whether rich or poor, we are all alike in death.”

“This is playing God.”

“If that idea truly bothered you, you wouldn’t have come seeking my help in the first place.”

Shiro eyed the vial warily. “Does it have to come to this?”

“It doesn’t _have_ to come to anything,” Keith said. “At least, it doesn’t if you’re willing to pay the price for your ambition.”

Shiro stared Keith down, unsure of how to proceed. He was loathe to take human souls needlessly, but at the same time, he needed the quintessence Keith was offering. It was just a matter of deciding whether he would roll over and do things Keith’s way for the sake of simplicity, or stand up and insist on doing things in a way to preserve what little virtue he had left at this point.

Keith sighed, shaking his head. “Should have known you wouldn’t make this easy for me.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but Keith stepped forward, closing the distance between them. He came close enough that Shiro could smell the cigarette smoke on him, feel the heat of his breath and count his eyelashes. He opened Shiro’s breast pocket and slipped the vial in.

“Standing here arguing isn’t going to get us anywhere,” he sighed, “so I’ll leave it in your hands. If you want to get the souls I require in your own way, fine, so be it. But there is a little ace up your sleeve, should you need it.”

He patted Shiro’s pocket, then stepped back, producing one of his cigarettes and slipping it between his lips. The movement, the sight of Keith’s pretty lips around the thin, white cancer stick, produced an odd sensation in Shiro’s stomach, as if he’d suddenly fallen from a great height, though for what reason, he couldn’t say.

“I think this is a fair compromise,” Keith said, lighting his cigarette with a snap of his fingers. “Don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t really call it a compromise…”

Keith raised an eyebrow. “Would you rather I break that stupid vial and let you deal with the fallout of it?”

Shiro shook his head.

“I thought as much.” Keith smirked, heading for the edge of the roof. “You know what my price is. You might want to start collecting.”

“I know. I will.”

“Good.” Keith hopped onto the ledge - but he didn’t jump down right away. For a moment, he just stood there, silhouetted against the skyline of Los Angeles, a ribbon of cigarette smoke rising above his head and dissipating into the night sky. There, like that, he was almost as beautiful as he was before he’d Fallen. The very thought made Shiro’s heart hurt.

“Shiro?”

Shiro snapped out of his reverie and found that Keith was looking back at him. His usual smirk was gone, eyebrows unfurrowed; he looked young, vulnerable almost.

“Yeah?”

Keith said nothing, just looked at Shiro with that vulnerable expression, a glint of something like longing in his glowing red eyes. But then, the moment passed, and Keith grinned, all sharp teeth and malicious intent.

“I’ll be watching.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from ["The Plagues" from the Prince of Egypt soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRLsZldkkMo)
> 
> Follow my obsession with Voltron and Sheith [on Tumblr](http://mllecomtessedelafere.tumblr.com) and [on Twitter.](http://twitter.com/celticaurora)


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